Recovering Evangelicals

Brian takes an entirely new and unexpected direction in this latest book: it’s not enough to talk about bringing heaven down to earth, we have to stop creating hell on earth. Brian MacLaren is widely recognized in the Evangelical community. In fact, in 2015, Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential Evangelicals in America! But he’s been on a journey through Evangelicalism that whole time, and he recounts some of that history during the first few minutes of our conversation with him. He’s documented the details of that journey in his many books … over two dozen of them. If you’ve read even a few of them, especially the most recent ones, you’d be forgiven for making hasty assumptions about the subject of this next one. But I guarantee you would never have predicted this one. Life After Doom is about the coming apocalypse …. total ecological and societal collapse. As he put it: “we have created a civilization that, the more it succeeds, the faster it accelerates toward suicide … we’re sucking more resources out of the earth than it can sustain, and we’re pumping out more waste products than the earth can detoxify … we’re destroying our life support system.” After years of fact checking and careful research, he’s not sure if it’s even possible to turn our civilization around, or if the better thing is to let this one fall apart so that something better can be built in the ruins. Many experts feel it’s too late for change. Brian envisions these two major collapses — of human society, and of Earth’s ecology — interacting with each other, producing four likely outcomes: Scenario 1: Collapse Avoidance: civilization destabilizes the ecology, and ecological decline destabilizes civilization; humanity gets its act together and drops in number to a level that Earth’s ecology can sustain (~2.5 billion people); this will be a slow, painful, and costly outcome. Scenario 2: Collapse/Rebirth: civilization doesn’t learn fast enough, and essentially collapses; but the ecosystem rebounds in time for a remnant to survive and rebuild that more sustainable (and possibly even enjoyable) existence on the planet, in harmony with the planet Scenario 3: Collapse/Survival: civilization collapses, and devastates the ecosystem in the process; humanity manages to build something from the ruins, but it’s a meagre struggle for mere survival Scenario 4: Collapse/Extinction: civilization collapses and nations resort to catastrophically destructive means (total nuclear, chemical, biological war) to protect their interests in an attempt to “survive” … and completely ruin everything in the process Folks, these are not happy scenarios. Think about what happened when recent societal collapse in parts of Asia or South America sent only a few million migrants into Europe and the United States — the anti-immigrant response … forced encampment …. Fascism (in Europe) and White Supremacy (in the U.S.) — and then multiply that conflict by several thousand when not just a few million, but a few billion people are similarly affected. Brian places a lot of blame on the fossil fuel industry, for using huge amounts of money to cover up the data which predicted these outcomes decades ago, just so that they could continue to make more money. But he also says that, really, we’re all culpable for ignoring the warning signs. He uses a great analogy of a lumberjack cutting down a tree with a trunk 10 meters in diameter. As the lumberjack gets through the first half of that cutting, the tree continues to stand. Seven meters in … it’s still standing. By eight meters there’s a little bit of creaking and groaning. When the cut is just over nine meters deep, the tree gives out a couple sudden explosive warning shots that reverberate through the forest, and the worker pauses. But the tree is still standing, apparently unaffected by the deep cut. The only real sign of any damage to the tree is a small pile of sawdust accumulating beside the tree. The worker continues. But he only manages to cut for another minute or two before there is one more thunderous crack that he can feel in his chest. At this point, it’s too late. The die is now cast. There is absolutely nothing that can be done to stop the inevitable. No quick fixes will keep that tree standing. The outcome is assured. And final. In this analogy, the small pile of accumulating sawdust is the smog in our air, and the grunge in our waters. The loud thunderous cracks are the melting of the polar ice caps, the shut-down of the ocean currents, and the massive and accelerating species extinctions going on around the world. Do we really need to wait for that one last irreversible explosive warning shot before we ask whether we know what we’re doing, and whether we should maybe stop? And Brian also attributes an additional but different kind of blame on the shoulders of Evangelicals. They typically dismiss the warning signs by thinking/saying things like: “it’s all gonna’ burn, right? … Jesus is coming back and he’s just gonna’ torch the place anyway. We’re just accelerating the timeline for him.” In all honesty, that kind of thought went through my own head when I was in my Fundamentalist teen years. Evangelicals also contribute in their tunnel-visioned science denial, resistance to authority and controls, and by aligning with big money interests. Brian paints a convicting picture. The shoe does fit. But not content to just dramatize and criticize, Brian then provides four steps towards solutions. You’ll need to read the book to find out what those are. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more about Brian MacLaren’s story, his books, and upcoming appearances at his website. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like Episode #67, where we talk specifically about the Evangelical response to Climate Change, or a series of episodes dealing with Evangelical science denial. Episode image used by permission of Brian MacLaren. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

A social anthropologist, with decades of scholarship on people striving to connect to another dimension, gives us her perspective on the Evangelical version of this phenomenon. “It’s not a religion … it’s a relationship!”  Many Christians claim this is what separates their faith from all others.  There was a time when I myself made this claim.  I don’t anymore.  Not because “we broke up.”  But because, by any definition of the word “relationship” in every other context in my life, it was never there to begin with.  What I mean is, I do have many other relationships where there is a back-and-forth engagement … a sharing of presence, and even of ideas …. perceptible or even tangible exchanges.  But despite decades of sincerely trying to make any kind of connection with the Divine, I have essentially nothing to show for my efforts: any evidence that I might present to substantiate that relationship pales in comparison to the other ones I have with other people, with organizations, and even with my pets. I know I’m not alone in feeling like this. And yet others claim they have been and continue to be successful: they “hear from the Lord” and “sense his presence” all the time.   As a wannabe-Christian, it’s hard not to feel left out. We’ve already done one episode talking about this solely from our own perspective (Episode #42). In this episode, we talk to a social anthropologist — Dr. Tanya M. Luhrmann — who studied this phenomenon in detail, and wrote the book When God Talks Back: understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God (2012).  She has done numerous studies of people groups around the world who believe they have a special connection to another dimension of reality that is not usually accessible to most other people.  But it was a conversation she had with an Evangelical Christian who claimed to “have coffee with Jesus all the time” that began her in-depth study of my own in-crowd. And she noticed a recurring theme running through all those claims of spiritual experiences, whether they came from people practicing dark magic (aka: witchcraft, Wicca, Naturists) in England, or local religions in five different countries in Africa and Asia  …. or from Evangelical Christians on the western coast of the USA.  She kept hearing that it takes a lot of work and effort … that time and practice changes you and makes it easier … and that some people are better at it than others. It seems that Christians aren’t the only ones who have a proverbial “prayer warrior” in their midst!? And she wasn’t just watching all these practitioners from a distance.  She entered their worlds, went to their meetings, practiced the rituals with them, and got to know them on a personal level.  And she did find that doing so began to change her … to alter how she thought, her experiences, her sense of reality. She saw visions, and felt “warm fuzzies”!? Our conversation covered a wide variety of points: she grew up in a diversified religious context (Baptist; Fundamentalist Evangelicals; Christian Science; conservative Judaism), but does not claim any religious affiliation of her own she not only observed druids & witches in England, but she immersed herself in their world, and learned their rituals and beliefs much of their training involved focused meditation, envisioning things happening, and imagining the sensations that accompanied those happenings; as she practiced this, she felt she was being changed inwardly, that she was seeing the world through new eyes (sometimes literally …. she recounts one vision of druids appearing in her backyard); for me, it was uncanny how much this all sounded like Ignatian prayer, which many Christians practice are some people just wired differently in order to have these experiences? can we adjust our brain’s wiring through mental practices (have you ever heard of cognitive behavioral therapy?) her work with Evangelical Christians in USA “having coffee with Jesus” …. “imagining that Jesus is right there” … setting an empty chair for Jesus at the dinner table she spoke of their meditative/prayer practices, which were, again, very much like Ignatian prayer she remarked again how often she heard the same phrases from the Evangelical Christians that she heard in her earlier studies with the Wiccans: “it takes a lot of time and effort (going to worship services, weekly study groups, practice at home) … it takes work and dedication … some people are better at it than others … people who practice a lot, they change.”  the Jesus movement of the 70s and 80s: people giving up LSD for speaking in tongues this tendency to develop a spiritual/religious paradigm seems to be a universally human phenomenon.  Is it an adapted trait?  What might be the evolutionary advantage? Is it a mechanism for gaining a feeling of control over a scary world?  Or is it because we humans are such social animals that the concept of “God” serves as a social bonding agent. humans have evolved a tendency to see Agency everywhere (the “Hyperactive Agency Detection System” that we talked about in Episode #78).  psilocybin mushrooms provide a comparable religious experience Luke then asked Dr. Luhrmann for her expert opinion on his new understanding of why some Christians might claim to have those “God moments.”  After spending so much time and effort in prayer, meditation, going to weekly meetings (or even multiple times per week) and actively looking for a spiritual connection with the Divine, they’re essentially curating an ever-expanding database of experiences, and are then developing cognitive skills aimed at looking for ways to “connect the dots.”  Through confirmation bias, and massaging the data, and loosening the boundaries around certain words and ideas, it becomes easier to find ways to connect those dots.  A somewhat crude analogy is the “Texas Sharp-shooter Fallacy”: someone who sprays dozens of rounds into the side of a distant barn, then paints a bulls-eye around the densest concentration of bullet holes … and then claims to be a sniper. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more about Dr. Tanya Luhmann at her personal webpage or her institution’s faculty page, and these links to her book When God Talks Back: understanding the American evangelical relationship with God (2012) and her more recent one How God Becomes Real: kindling the presence of invisible others (2022). If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like our first episode on the “personal relationship” that Christians claim to have (or not have), or our episode on prayer, or a series of episodes on the neurobiology and psychology underlying spiritual experiences. Episode image used by permission. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Explore the evolution of the concept of Hell across different religious beliefs, from ancient Hebrews to modern Evangelicals. Discuss the trauma caused by the fear of eternal torment and the pushback faced by those questioning traditional beliefs. Dive into the pastor's journey towards purgatorial universalism and the redemptive interpretation of Hell as a refining process. Delve into the transformative power of purgation and the upcoming project on Christianity and politics.

David Morris, with a PhD in psychology and theology, tells us about the psychology behind forming a spiritual/religious worldview, and then rejecting that worldview, and the mourning process that follows. In this episode, we talk to Dr. David Morris, who holds a PhD in psychology and in theology, worked for one of the largest publishers of Christian books (Zondervan), and is now starting up his own publishing business. David first gave us his personal story of growing up in a very Evangelical home (Southern Baptist), but ended up giving up almost everything he believed …. twice! Once after coming through university, and encountered a number of intellectual assaults on his faith, from which he reconstructed a very different (more liberal) Christian faith. The second time, though, was more a result of religious abuse, from which he’s still recovering. Having his doctorate in both psychology and theology, he had to process the wide range of emotions he was going through as he deconstructed and deconverted … again, twice. Fear, anger, grief, betrayal, …. as well as peace, release, and a new understanding of himself. David then talked to us in detail about the psychology behind the formation of a world view and belief system, as well as the psychology behind leaving both of those. We covered a wide range of topics, all related to the first half of his book — Psychology of disillusionment, mourning and a return of hope — in which he gives a foundational understanding of the history, sociology and psychology of a theology: sociological surveys Sigmund Freud the Jesus movement of the 70s and 80s America founded by Fundamentalists; Canada founded by French/Catholics, and then by British/Protestants Fowler’s Faith Stage Theory …. religious/spiritual formation parallels cognitive/behavioral/psychological development from childhood to independent adult Erik Erikson … the interaction between self and society; famous for coining phrase “identity crisis” how we need safe spaces to explore spirituality and religious world views the fifth chapter of his book: longest one in the book (2-3 times longer than the other ones) is all about mourning the loss of faith Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief (denial; anger; bargaining; depression; acceptance) Freud’s mourning versus melancholia diffusing the negative emotional energy of painful memories, and then reinvesting that in/with something new getting “stuck” in a certain stage of development (Erikson/Fowler) or of grieving (Freud/Kübler-Ross) Melanie Klein and “pining” for something new after the grieving of leaving something old In the second half of his book, David devotes a chapter to each of six different individuals: people in many respects much like any one of us (in other words, not prominent leaders or personalities) who went through a convoluted, complex, difficult spiritual journey that involved at least one re-formation of their worldview and spirituality. I’m sure the listeners will relate personally to at least one of these six people (I particularly related to Randall … giving up the faith of his father). In each chapter, David applies the psychosocioanalytical tools described in the first half of the book. One of several threads that ran through all six stories? … it’s a long process or journey, lasting decades. At the end of our conversation, we asked David about the subtitle of his book, particularly the phrase: “… and a return of hope.” What is this hope? His answer ….. coming alive to life, finding things that bring you joy that you can connect to …. becoming a whole person, and being able to ask all the questions you want to ask and finding a space to talk about those things … community again! As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … You can find more about Dr. David Miller at his personal webpage, or the one for his publishing business (Lake Drive Books), and his blog page. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like ones we’ve done before on the neurobiology of the spiritual experience and on spiritual/religious abuse (seven to choose from here). Episode images used by permission from Dr. David Morris. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

For Sarah Henn Hayward, reading a few too many books, meeting a few too many beautiful non-Christians, and asking a few too many questions, was just too much for her Evangelical faith. For five years, we’ve been building a community of like-minded people wrestling with a spirituality that didn’t work for us  …. or even harmed us. We’re all Recovering Evangelicals. In this episode, we talk to yet another Recovering Evangelical … Sarah Henn Hayward … who just published her deconstruction story in Giving up God: resurrecting a spirituality of love and wonder. Through her first two decades, Sarah was fully on board with her Evangelical faith, wearing it on her sleeve and actively laboring for it. But she was also a voracious reader, and a critical thinker. Ultimately, we’ll find, she simply asked a few too many questions and read a few too many books, and that led to her leaving that worldview and starting a journey to look for another one. Going to university to pursue a career in health care immediately began to chip away at her Evangelical beliefs and values. One student she befriended was full of life, joy and goodness: however, he was gay. Another fellow student who seemed to share all of Sarah’s values and deep religious conviction, was a Muslim. Sarah’s relationship with both of them, and others, caused her to question so many ideas that she had grown up accepting fully, and so many parts of the Bible which she thought were absolutely condemning of friends like them. At the same time, Sarah discovered the writings of an Episcopalian Christian mystic — which further challenged many of her Evangelical ideas, especially those pertaining to hell. And then, ironically, the fourth serious challenge to her Evangelical faith was a number of theology courses that she took: learning about how the Bible and Christian dogma were put together by humans was eye-opening, to say the least. “A world full of blurred lines and shades of grey felt scary compared to the simplistic black-and-white views I’d held before. Now I had a harder time reading the Bible with all this cultural context added in.” Sarah Henn Hayward Sarah finished university with a much more liberalized Christian faith. As she began pursuing her career, and a husband, and having kids, she continued going to church. But she was still reading …. and asking questions. Her husband opened her eyes to the disturbing links between Evangelicalism and American politics. Simply looking for some medical information to develop promotional material for her health care clinic had her learning about the evolution of the human foot … and about human evolution in general. We heard the same thing from Paul Enns (“Paulogia”), who told us that simply looking up some basic information about dinosaurs, so he could more accurately draw them in a video he was creating, that opened up his eyes to the truth about evolution … and shattered his Evangelical faith! And then the COVID pandemic happened. It forced Sarah to close her clinic temporarily. With her husband now working at home … and able to watch the kids during their nap time … Sarah had hours to go on long walks as she contemplated all this new information, and new perspectives. As well as the racial unrest and deep partisan divisions that were tearing society apart … the crazy things that Evangelicals were saying and doing (and not doing) about COVID … their involvement in politics and the election. A world full of cruelty, hate, racism, murder, cancer, suffering …. couldn’t God have done better? It was all too much. Ultimately, it was theodicy — the problem of a good God and so much evil — that finally pushed her over the edge. She could no longer believe in God. In the final few chapters of her book, Sarah describes how she’s trying out a few new hats … new labels for her spirituality: Poetic Naturalism? … Agnostic? … Christian Atheist? Yes, you read that right: that juxtaposition is intentional. Sarah can no longer believe in God, and yet she recognizes that her Christian upbringing has shaped her: she will always be Christian …. “it’s in my cells ….  my DNA.” We heard the same kind of thing from Frankie Schaeffer when we interviewed him last year: Sarah is a Christian who doesn’t believe in God … Frankie said he’s an atheist who believes in God. In the last few minutes of our conversation, we talked with Sarah about whether it was really the traditional Evangelical conception of God which shattered, rather than other possible conceptions of God. And we asked if she could set aside all this talk of original sin, divine wrath, blood sacrifice, and eternal conscious torment in hell (the Evangelical “Gospel”), and yet still embrace a spirituality that talks about love and liberty, enjoying community and creation (the Christ-ian Gospel). Sarah resonated with that to some extent, but it seems that the baggage related to the Evangelical concept of God is still holding her back. As always, tell us your thoughts … Find more information about Sarah and her book at her website. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like similar interviews we’ve had with Frankie Schaeffer and Paul Enns (“Paulogia”). Episode image used by permission from Sarah Henn Hayward. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

In the season opener, the hosts discuss moving beyond deconstructed faith. They highlight reasons for leaving religion and the need for deliberate reconstruction. The evolution of evangelical Christianity, significance of the virgin birth, and reevaluation of Paul's influence are explored. The podcast also touches on collaboration, morality, and transformation through the gospel.

A brief retrospective on Season 4, and a longer one on the journey that the podcast has taken us on through Christian belief. Well, we kept it going for over a year, and added 54 more episodes to our archive. But all good things must come to an end. And so this will be the finale for our fourth season of episodes. This podcast grew out of a blog site I started almost 10 years ago. Both were vehicles for my own personal quest to find a new Christian worldview to replace the one that was handed to me in my teen years, and which no longer worked for me. And it also didn’t seem to work for others of my generation who grew up in it: it seems that most of them no longer follow that version of Christianity, and almost none of our own children seem to do so either. The podcast was a vehicle … a catalyst … for my journey out of 20th century North American Evangelicalism, and into a new version of Christian belief. And it has become a public record of that personal journey. After taking a brief look back at this fourth season of episodes, and trying to decide whether we started to get mired in the science weeds, Scott and I talked about where this podcast has taken each of us in our respective personal belief systems, and shared our new perspectives on: the Bible, and Divine inspiration God, Divine intervention in human affairs, Deism and mysticism Hell, and the second coming of Christ the ever-elusive “personal relationship” with the Divine humans need something transcendent, or we slip into anarchy and savagery the relative merits of Christianity versus humanism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam. As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Biology is unique among the sciences in its apparently absolute dependence on language that implies a goal, direction, or intention. Does this mean that biology IS goal-oriented, or directed? If so, that has huge philosophical and theological implications!? Our deep-dive into Intelligent Design got us wondering why so many people embrace that worldview. Not just “sheeple” who can often blindly follow vocal proponents of even crazy beliefs (COVID was a global government-orchestrated event; vaccines cause autism; everything Q-Anon; the “stolen” election), but even many with impressive academic credentials who appear to have researched the question. In trying to understand this, we came across an article with the title The Teleological Menace: Why Biology (Still) Requires God by Seth Hart, a doctoral candidate whose current research project asks: does Darwinism (Natural Selection as a causal mechanism of evolution) require teleological concepts? He made many great points that are worth sharing with our listeners. Some of the main points we discussed with him included: biology is more dependent upon teleological language than all the other sciences like physics, chemistry or astronomy; both the Darwinism of the 19th century and the more modern Extended Synthesis are dependent on this organisms don’t just occupy their niches … they create those niches and then occupy the latter. In other words, they are agents in their own evolution. definitions of “teleology” and “teleological language” … roots in Platonic thinking; highly developed by Aristotle; points toward ultimate meaning and purpose during 13th to 16th centuries, there was a movement away from teleology within the natural sciences; this was a theological decision led by Theists like Descartes and Bacon, not an anti-religious one! Likewise, it was Jewish and Christian thinking that began to move the world away from invoking spiritual explanations into natural phenomena however, biologists like William Harvey, Robert Boyle, William Paley were very resistant to this effort to remove teleology from biology; Darwin went back and forth on using/resisting their influences today, teleological language is used everywhere and all the time in biology: “birds have wings so that they can fly” … “viruses and bacteria mutate in order to find better ways to infect you better” … “Natural Selection wants to maximize efficiency and reproduction” we reflected on comments made by two widely recognized philosophers when we asked them the same questions: Dr. P. Z. Myers doesn’t see teleological language in biological literature, while Dr. Denis Walsh acknowledges biologists do often use that kind of language, but they don’t mean it. is this overuse of teleological language “just sloppy language,” much like how we humans will often personify inanimate objects (referring to a car or boat as “she”) At the end of this discussion, we addressed what seems to be two inevitable conclusions: biology doesn’t (or can’t) make sense without teleological language. Therefore life must be teleological: it has purpose and meaning. a Theistic worldview seems to be the only philosophically coherent way to hold this to be true. If those two conclusions didn’t slap you in the face, you need to read them again, more carefully. Two equally provocative implications of those two statements: are humans the inevitable end-point of evolution? is Evolution a mythological origin story as much as religions are? Let us know what you think of those conclusions and their implications ….. If you enjoyed this episode, you might also enjoy our retrospective of our Intelligent Design mini-series, in which we summarize our current understanding of that worldview, including why so many people embrace it. Find Seth Hart at his university profile page or this Academia profile page. Also make sure to check the article that first brought Seth to our attention on this matter. Dr P. Z. Myers is a Professor of Biology at the University of Minnesota Morris, and founder of and writer at the Pharyngula science blogweb-site. Dr. Denis Walsh is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. Episode image by meineresterampe from Pixabay. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

The details behind the story of how bacteria mutated in order to grow bigger and better by eating oranges, instead of sugar. Last week, we talked to a member of the Long-Term Evolution Experiment, Dr. Zachary Blount. He and his colleagues followed 75,000 generations of bacteria competing for a limited food resource — sugar — and described many different kinds of genetic changes in 57 different genes. Creationists and ID-proponents dismiss this as “simply breaking genes.” In this episode, we take a very deep-dive into the story, and show how this is actually a prime example of evolution proceeding through gene duplication, progressive modifications, and the building up of new regulatory pathways and metabolic functions. How it is that well educated anti-evolutionists, especially the biochemists among them, can only see this as destructive and detrimental either says something about them being biased and misled … or deceptive!? Before we asked Zach to give us the details, we provided some background introductory information: evolution often involves duplication of stretches of DNA, followed by modifications which eventually lead to new functions, while leaving the original copy intact. This is NOT “breaking the gene” we give a crash course on how bacteria extract energy from glucose (see the color image attached below) evolution often happens in three steps: (1) prepare for new function (or “potentiation”) – changes occur which by themselves don’t appear to affect function, but they set the stage for something else (2) get the new function (or “actualization” or “instantiation” – the “something else” suddenly appears as a new function, although usually in a very weak and inefficient form (3) refine the new function – tweaking and optimization Bacterial metabolism of glucose through biochemical conversions (buckets) involving other molecules such as acetate, citrate, and succinate, producing energy molecules (the green “E”s in the figure). A potentiating mutation (#1, highlighted in pink) allows acetate to escape the process, thus accelerating the flow of glucose through the top half). An actualizing mutation (#2, highlighted in yellow) allows the OCEAN of citrate that the bugs are swimming in to now flow into the process, making it possible to grow on citrate in the presence of oxygen when glucose levels drop. [nb: this chart simplifies the story to the point of being inaccurate, but at least a non-expert can follow it!]] With that introduction in place, we then got deep into the details of this story: after 30,000 generations and 16 years, mutant cells had gained the ability to grow on citrate in the presence of oxygen (something that their non-mutated cousins couldn’t do) although the LTEE had found many other mutations that occurred in all 12 test-tubes, this one new function only happened in one of the 12 [and this is still true even today!]; this raises raises big questions regarding evolution, and became Zach’s research project (had to test 44 trillion cells to get some of the answers!!!) they went back to their “Frozen Fossil Record” (see last week’s post), and learned that mutations happened a year prior which weren’t detectable because the advantage was miniscule. BUT IT WAS THERE!  And it could then be refined (which it did by 33,000 generations) some changes enabled the bugs to take up much larger amounts of glucose, but at the “expense” of pooping out acetate, which later became a new food source through a new loophole that connected to citrate other changes that “Potentiated” … set the stage to use citrate as a food source the “Actualization” step was a duplication of a citrate transporter gene that was put under the regulation of glucose levels (the original copy was left in place and still regulated by oxygen levels … in other words, NOT BROKEN!!); now citrate uptake and metabolism can happen when glucose runs out! Like the Energizer Bunny, these mutant bugs now just keep on going when their non-mutated cousins are slowing down and dying ID-proponents, especially their biochemists, should be able to see this as an increase in function, information and complexity, but they PERSIST in dismissing this as “just breaking genes” or asking ignorant questions like: “did they see any examples of entirely new nanomachines?” (again, see last week’s episode) Contrary to the Creationist party line, this is precisely an example of small changes which accumulate and eventually become a new function. Evolution may be “clever” and innovative, but often it won’t be elegant; we talked about bizarre and inelegant designs like the anatomy of the recurrent laryngeal nerve, or the biochemistry of a photosynthetic enzyme in plants called rubisco; in the same way, this new re-design of citrate metabolism is also a “clunky” design, but it lets these mutants grow and thrive while their non-mutant cousins go extinct the new citrate-using bugs at generation 75,000 are growing better and better on the citrate/succinate microenvironment they’re creating (niche creation), but at the same time, are getting worse at growing on glucose (their ancestral resource). They are becoming a new species … becoming ecologically specialized! As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about our guest, Dr. Zachary Blount at his university profile page and his own lab’s web-site. Learn more about the LTEE itself, including descriptions of the team members and lists of their publications, at their webpage. You can also watch a video in which Dr. Blount regales Dr. Richard Lenski on the latter’s 60th birthday, and recounts the whole history of the LTEE. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like the mini-series of episodes we did focusing on Intelligent Design and its misrepresentation of science. Episode image by Andrew Kirkham. Thanks Andrew! To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive

Two very different interpretations of the same set of data: one from Creationists and ID proponents, and the other from the scientists actually doing the work. Here, we talk to one of the latter. A frequent talking point for creationists and Intelligent Design proponents in their anti-evolution rhetoric is a ground-breaking scientific project referred to as “the Long-Term Evolution Experiment.” Almost forty years ago, Dr. Richard Lenski began studying bacteria competing for limited energy resources (sugars) — generation after generation — looking for any genetic changes which gave any kind of advantage in that competition. His group have recently reached 76,000 generations, and documented many dozens of genetic mutations: rearrangements of regulatory pathways, elimination of genes which were no longer needed, introduction of new metabolic functions, shuffling of genetic information. In the process, there has been an incredible increase in fitness. This is much like someone deciding to train for a marathon — losing layers of fat, toning up muscles, revising their diet, replacing their normal wardrobe with ultra-light clothes and expensive runners, shaving seconds off of their run-time, increasing their stamina — and in the process, becoming a lean, mean running machine. Nonetheless, creationists and ID proponents persist in diminishing the LTEE findings to just “breaking genes” and losing information. After a brief introduction to the LTEE and the primary variables that they were monitoring (oxygen; fuel sources), we then talked to Dr. Zachary Blount, a member of the LTEE team who is continuing and broadening that research program, building on the findings and strategies of the LTEE. Points that we discussed included: the history of the LTEE: its founder, leaders, goals, and basic methodology twelve different “test tubes” of populations were kept separate, in order to see how the ancestral populations might try different evolutionary strategies they’ve now reached 76,000 generations; every 500 generations, they’ve frozen samples of the bugs so they can do follow-up experiments and/or recover from technical mistakes without having to start all over at the beginning …. they refer to this collection of samples as their “frozen fossil record” aerobic versus anaerobic metabolism (meaning with versus without oxygen) of glucose and another fuel source called citrate why did the experimenters add citrate to the medium in the first place? years later, the cells suddenly acquired a new ability to grow on the citrate in the presence of oxygen, something that their original bacterial ancestors were unable to do exactly how/why does metabolism of citrate change in the presence/absence of oxygen what were the “stressors” being imposed on the cells … answer: no “stress” or “stressor,” but rather simple competition for limited resources (fuel sources) what were the original goals of the LTEE project? the “randomness” of genetic variation mutations are not just simply individual “point-changes” in the base sequence of the DNA base, or individual amino-acids in the whole protein sequence; they can also include movements/insertions/deletions of whole segments of the DNA (thousands of bases at a time), duplication of large segments, and other forms of gene rearrangements the 12 separate populations of the ancestral bugs mutated in different directions and in somewhat different ways, but often landed on the same gene targets (although changing those genes in different ways) the mutated cells are much larger than the original ancestor (the researchers had expected a progressive reduction in size) the LTEE team found 57 different genetic changes …. and these were NOT simply just “breaking genes” or losing information, as creationists and ID proponents will so often say Dr. Blount then got into a very detailed and technical description of the whole citrate story, which is the one detail that creationists and ID proponents will particularly dwell upon, but we’re saving that part of the conversation for next week Scott and Luke then reflected a bit on what Zachary told us so far, and how that relates to the on-going discussion going on between creationists and anti-evolutionists: how it’s okay to be skeptical about scientific claims … to ask questions, and put the claims to the test … this is part of the Scientific Method and something that scientists do all the time; however, once those follow-up questions and tests have been answered and the claim still stands, a good and unbiased scientist accepts the claim and moves on. But creationists and ID proponents keep circling around the same inaccurate counterarguments the LTEE’s finding that 12 different populations set out on 12 different evolutionary journeys and yet often arrived at similar endpoints sounds an awful lot like life’s common ancestor spreading out to several different geographically isolated parts of the globe, exploring different evolutionary pathways and often coming up with very similar and yet fundamentally different answers (comparisons between mammals and marsupials were the specific example here) once again, the frustrating tendency of creationists and ID proponents to focus on just “breaking genes” and degradation of information; cells have a genetic toolkit which enables them to shuffle parts of genes or whole sections of DNA around; perhaps the best and most complicated example of this genetic shuffling is our immune system some might think that an evolutionary advantage of “only a couple percent” is too small to realistically provide a driving force on evolution; however, say that to an athlete who’s just trying to shave a few seconds off of an event that lasts minutes or hours … or to an investor who’s comparing stocks that make either 4% or 6% gains, or the manager’s expense fees being raised to 3% from 2.5% Luke’s intense frustration with the leaders and scholars of creationist and Intelligent Design worldviews, who are educated and smart enough to understand the science here, but who persist in misrepresenting and distorting that science (possibly intentionally so!?) As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic … Find more information about our guest, Dr. Zachary Blount at his university profile page and his own lab’s web-site. Learn more about the LTEE itself, including descriptions of the team members and lists of their publications, at their webpage. You can also watch a video in which Dr. Blount regales Dr. Richard Lenski on the latter’s 60th birthday, and recounts the whole history of the LTEE. If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like the mini-series of episodes we did focusing on Intelligent Design and its misrepresentation of science. Episode image by WikiImages from Pixabay. To help grow this podcast, please like, share and post a rating/review at your favorite podcast catcher. Subscribe here to get updates each time a new episode is posted, and find us on Twitter or Facebook. Back to Recovering Evangelicals home-page and the podcast archive